Welcome dear reader to Kreyolicious Reads…the place to discuss books about Haiti and to have conversations with the authors who wrote them. Today, I am continuing the convo with Dimitry Elias Leger, the author of God Loves Haiti, published recently by the good folks at HarperCollins. If you missed PART ONE of this stimulating conversation, be sure to CLICK HERE.
Above: The author at a book signing event in Stockholm, Sweden. Photo Courtesy of Author.
Kreyolicious: Do you think of yourself as a nomad?
Nope. I think of myself as a cosmopolitan Haitian. I’m familiar with and at ease with many corners of the planet, but home is where my parents and their parents, and I, was born. I’ve been an expat since I was 14 only for pragmatic reasons. Haiti was falling apart in early ’86 when I left. For the last and next decade, Lake Geneva has been and will be a terrific place for my wife and I to raise our children. Once you have kids, their well-being dictate where you should live.
Kreyolicious: I really like the book’s cover. Because the yellow-black is the theme for my other website.
Cool that you like the cover!
Kreyolicious: Did you have a say in its design?
A Swiss art director at the ad agency did it for me when I was thinking about self-publishing. It was too beautiful and the novel to dear to me to risk wasting in self-publishing. After HarperCollins bought the novel, I asked them to consider using it. And they did!
Kreyolicious: Oh, wow. He’s good.
Yeah, he’s dope. My only instructions to him were the words of the title had to be big on there, because in America that connotes serious literature. And no palm trees!
Kreyolicious: Will the book be translated in other languages soon?
Translations in other languages will happen soon as new publishers in other countries buy the novel. We’re pursuing them across the globe.
Kreyolicious: What if you had never come to the USA, or lived in any of those places…those other places…what sort of book would God Loves Haiti be? What if you were still that little boy from Port-au-Prince and had remained there.
Interesting question. That little boy in College Bird was a pretty good writer. My guess is if he’d never left Haiti he’d still grow up to become a novelist who wrote a novel called God Loves Haiti. If this alternative reality does not include the earthquake, then it would be a different novel in some ways, but not in the essential questions I explore—like where does resilience come from? Or love? Or optimism in the face of Haiti’s everyday failings. I’ve wondered why my father loved Haiti so much since I was a child, and exploring how the place is actually loveable despite its difficulties is a timeless quest. The big difference if I’d never left Haiti is that the novel would be written and published in French first—not English—even though in my head it’s in French.
Kreyolicious: What advice would you say to those people out there who are constantly fantasizing about writing a book, but just can’t seem to get down to actually doing it?
Any book? I can talk only about novels. For me, it helped that I felt great urgency. I felt like I had no choice in my life, but to write and publish at least one good novel before I died. My father was old enough to be my grandfather. He was 49 when I was born. He was obsessed with his legacy, and I inherited that obsession at a young age. I loved books, and I was a good writer. I liked the challenge of writing about new subjects for new audiences, and I did so for different magazines and newspapers for a long time. Writing and publishing a good literary fiction novel was my ultimate challenge, my Moby Dick, probably since the first teacher noted my talents as a writer, probably when I was around 10 years-old at College Bird in Port-au-Prince. It took a long time to get one done and out in the world. For people fantasizing about writing and publishing good books, the good news is that time is on your side. Literature may be the only artistic field where you can get started in your 40s. You can try your luck at it at any time, as long as you do the homework of reading the best in your genre, culture, and style before you set out to find your voice. The world will always want funny yet important books.
Kreyolicious: Speaking of your father, what did he think of your career leanings?
Well, he got to see become a pretty successful magazine and newspaper writer before he passed away in 2004. He was proud. He knew I was going to become a professional writer when I was a kid. It was going to be that or architecture. Everyone in our neighborhood and College Bird knew that. When I was 18 and in college, my dad was [concerned] with my dreadlocks. He worried they would stall my career. I told him that as long as I can write well, white people would forgive my dreadlocks. I was proven right. Too bad he didn’t live another ten years to see how well received a novel I wrote called God Loves Haiti has been. He’s one of those people who never doubted that God loved Haiti. He’d have gotten an incredible kick out of the novel. When I did my book signing in Haiti, I felt his presence among all the elders at the reading who kept asking questions about the novel’s title.
Kreyolicious: Did you ever consider any other titles for the book?
I’m very attached to every single word in that book from cover to the last sentence. I wrote them in 2011 and held on to them no matter how many publishers rejected the manuscript. You could say the novel is my version of Kanye West’s “Jesus Walks.”
Kreyolicious: After reading your God Loves Haiti, Gary Shteyngart said that he wished you could produce a tome every month. Is there another novel lurking in the fingers of Dimitry Elias Leger? What should we expect from you next?
Yes, you can look forward to more novels from me in the future. I’m enjoying the process of finding new ways to tell new stories in my particular style. There are so many Haitian lives to explore. One thing I know, I’m sure my future novels won’t come out at the frequency Gary suggests though!
DIMITRY ELIAS LEGER ON YOUTUBE | DIMITRY ELIAS LEGER ON TWITTER | DIMITRY ELIAS LEGER’S WEBSITE
BUY GOD LOVES HAITI ON ITUNES| BUY GOD LOVES HAITI ON AMAZON | BUY GOD LOVES HAITI AT BARNES AND NOBLE
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